Curtiss Valtris stood in front of his tank. The MK IV Pajak, a newer model, was currently inactive, and didn't exude the many noises a tank normally would if it were. Instead of waiting to be sent on a mission, however, this one was just waiting for it's crew. The commander sighed and looked at the tank, marked "Rekina 4", and wondered what it would be like to finally be in command, after having served as a simple crewmember for several years. He turned around again, looking over the tarmac of Camp Stohling, and noticed a group of recruits making their way over. Perhaps that was them. There were four, after all, and that was the number of crewmen beyond the commander that this tank required.

Nestled in a saddle between Edania's southern mountains and a couple of smaller mountains that had decided to pop up a short ways north, the Camp was the perfect place for training- it had every condition, barring desert, that the tank crews needed to practice in, and was far enough away from any of the small, constant wars that it was almost never in jeapordy, especially with the skills of the border watchers, patrolling the mountains in their specially-designed tanks.

Soon, the group arrived at Rekina 4, and Curtiss introduced himself.
"Hello, My name is Curtiss Valtris, and I will be your commander for this tour. May I know your names?" The commander smiled as he said this, trying to keep a lighter tone.

A lightly built, brown-haired, brown-eyed girl spoke first. "Recruit Zali Hanya, Reporting!" was her only reply, and her face immediately became blank once more upon finishing her introduction.

Not one for words it seems, That one... the young commander thought, smiling and looking to the other three- a young man and a pair of twin girls, who seemed younger even than Zali.

Today was an exciting day for Emeryk for he was joining with the new tank crew that he would be serving with. As such he did not hold back his joy and went all out expressing himself, as shown by the faint grin that sat on his relaxed face. The young man glanced to either side of him as he walked across the tarmac on his way to the tank hangar, and noted three others that were walking the same direction; all of them were female.

â€œHmm, this should be interesting,â€ the boy thought to himself as he picked up his nonchalant pace a bit to match more purposeful pace of the others.

Upon reaching the hangar Emeryk stood in line with the other recruits as they faced their new commander, giving a passive look at those introducing themselves. Once Zali introduced herself Emeryk to the initiative and spoke.
â€œRecruit Emeryk Sikora reporting, sir. I look forward to serving with you,â€ he said politely as he tried to match the tone set by Curtiss.

Two twin specks of bright red had approached Curtiss, intermingled with the rest of the group. The two girls had remained silent and holding hands as the others introduced themselves first. However, the way each girl held herself was vastly different and entirely worlds apart. One girl, with pigtails, was practically bouncing up and down on her feet, brimming with excitement. Her emerald green eyes shone with life as they simply leaped from one person to another, eager to know their names.

The other twin sister however, had a ponytail, and stood at rapt attention. Her eyes seemed to bore into one person at a time, scrutinizing them for details. As expected; her green eyes were quite cold. Or at least so in comparison to her bouncing sister. But they still had a faint twinkle of interest in them all. "Please? Can we? Pleeeeeeeease?!" the lively twin with pigtails begged her stoic, ponytailed sister. The redhead with the ponytail sighed, relenting, and nodded. "OH YEAH!" the pigtailed girl shouted in joy, fist pumping in victory. They both then stood side by side and cleared their throats in unison. And in unison, they spoke,

"Hi! My name is Dita Sawiki and I'm eager to get to know you all! A pleasure to meet your acquaintances!"
"Hi! My name is Dyta Sawiki and I'm eager to get to know you all! A pleasure to meet your acquaintances!"

"Well met, Zali, Emeryk, Dita, and Dyta." Curtiss responded, bowing jovially and grinning at his new crew. "Welcome to Rekina Squadron, Tank number Four. This here is a Pajak Model IV, which I should hope you are all familiar with by now. Our squadron is assembling as we speak, and, luckily, you guys are the first entire crew to make it this far in training, so that means we get a few extra days to learn to work together." Curtiss seemed to be rather excited about the idea, but it was mostly a show- to be truthful, he would much rather relax for a few days like the other commanders, but he just had to get the good bunch of recruits, and so, they were training early.

"Alright, Everyone, Let's hop in, and see how well you all know your positions in the Tank!" the commander tasked the new crew suddenly, unlatching the folding ladder and flipping it down so they could climb up and into the tank.

Emeryk excitedly made his way over to the tank as he gazed admiringly up at the impressive machine. The boy himself had been trained to be this machineâ€™s mechanic and pilot, so it was going to be up to him to keep the tank running and his crew out of harmâ€™s way.

â€œBoarding the tank now, sir,â€ he said as he climbed up first to get into the pilotâ€™s seat. Once inside he made his way to the front and sat down. Almost instantly he felt attached to the tank and could think of nothing else besides its impressiveness as he ran his hands along the controls.
â€œI look forward to working with you,â€ he said quietly to the tank.

The redhead with the ponytail merely stared at their new leader. "Wow. You actually managed to sort our names out of that." she noted, slightly impressed. On the other hand, he may have just read their dossiers. It didn't matter. Dyta's hand suddenly lanced out and grabbed the redhead with the pigtails by the collar.

"Taaaaaaank!" Dita yelled out in excitement. "I wanna! I wanna! I wanna get in there and stomp it around! Or, or man the guns and blow stuff up!" She suddenly ceased struggling for a moment as an epiphany stuck her. "Or I can make it dance!" Dyta sighed and let go; Dita went flying into the leg of the machine and slammed into it hard, only to come back alive and scurry up the leg like a spider herself.

After the pilot and the loud twins(well, just one of them was loud, but they seemed to go together), the overly quiet Zali made her way up the ladder and then down through the hatch, to sit in her gunner's position. Lastly, Curtiss climbed up, flipping the ladder up behind him to keep the six-legged tank's ground clearance equal all around, before taking his spot in the turret, sitting partway out of the hatch so that he could see well.

Emeryk, in his seat, would see the controls- a Yoke to steer, A set of pedals that controlled their speed and the transmission from the engine, and three controls that set off hydraulic pumps to actuate special functions on the legs. The leftmost control was a low flat lever marked 'Jump', with a little toggle that decided whether it would jump straight forward, or to either side. Next to it was the Obstacle height setting, using a switch that had several settings, marked everywhere from half a meter to three meters. The rightmost switch had only three settings; Stand at the top, Walk in the middle, and crouch at the bottom. Currently the tank was set to crouch, with .5m as their obstacle height. The Jump toggle was set in the middle, so if Emeryk pressed it they would jump forward, though a safety prevented him from doing so at the moment.

Dyta would find herself down in the tank body next to Emeryk- each of them had their own small hatches they could open if the small viewports were too obstructive, or they weren't getting shot at, although the only thing Dyta had to use was the Bugle she carried. Dita was up beneath the turret, her seat placed between the tank's magazine and the main gun's breach, allowing her to easily do her job, which was loading. Next to Dita, on the other side of the turret, was Zali, the Tank's gunner, whom was currently testing the sight and getting a feel for her controls. Above and behind Dita and Zali, were Curtiss' legs, or rather, that was about all of him they could see at the moment.

"Alright Emeryk, start her up and get us out of this hangar!" Curtiss called down into the tank, giving his first order as a Tank Commander.

â€œYes sir,â€ Emeryk promptly replied to the order. He gave a passing glance over to Dyta who sat the closest to him before locking his eyes onto the controls as his face returned to its stoic default. Upon cueing the ignition he carefully put pressure on the yoke to ease the tank forward. He had driven a couple of tanks during basic, and one thing he noted about driving them was that they touchy. Once he got a feel for how much effort was proper he moved the tank out of the hangar and onto the tarmac.

â€œSir, we are clear of the hangar. Awaiting further orders,â€ Emeryk called up to Curtiss once he had moved the tank a good ways onto the staging area.

"Sorry sis, but it looks like we're not changing up jobs." Dyta, the calmer and more quiet of the twins noted softly.

"HA! That's what I wanted you to think! But in actuality, I was going for the task of LOADER!" Dita, the loud and energetic of the two cheered. "See, life's just like aiming a tank gun! You gotta compensate for projectile drop, so you aim high! I WANTED to be a loader, but if I came in expecting to be a loader, I was going to probably end up on communications duty with a trumpet!" the pigtailed redhead explained. As she stood there triumphantly inside the tank, hands on her hips, a sheepish expression slowly began to creep onto her face. "Er...not that being the one with the trumpet is a bad thing!" she explained. Dyta pulled out her trumpet and checked it over, merely shrugging at that.

"No offense taken." the ponytailed twin replied. As Dita looked away, a single brassy note was blown from within the cabin and into her ear. "Ah, it seems to be working." Dyta noted. Dita's eyes went crossed for a moment.

Curtiss grinned as the tank moved out and into the sunlight. it was nice feeling the new machine crawl its way forward, hydraulically driven legs making the ride much smother than some of the enemies' clockwork-based mechanisms he had ridden on after battles. He spun a crank located next to his seat, and it descended, dropping him further into the tank so that only his head was sticking out, and he leaned in calling to the two up front. "Those hatches open, you know. let's get a breeze flowing through the tank!" the black-haired young man ordered, though not harshly at all.

Next thing he knew however, he was nearly jostled from his seat as the turret began rotating before he could try and compensate. "whoah there, Zali, gimme a warning first." he joked, regaining his composure swiftly.
"Apologies, commander. I will await your orders next time." she responded.
"No, I need you to take initiative, just make sure I know what's going on. The more we all pay attention, the longer we'll last. Understand that, ladies... and Emeryk? speaking of, why don't you take us two clicks to the west?"